Why Lou Dobbs is Not a Journalist

Lou Dobbs made his bones as a business reporter and host on CNN Headline News, but since moving to Fox Business, he has proven himself to be a hopelessly irrational right-wing crank. And he demonstrated why he can’t be considered a real journalist with an interview with Robert Jeffress.

LOU DOBBS (HOST): Joining us now from Jerusalem, where he gave the prayer at the opening of the US embassy that is now in the capital of Israel, in Jerusalem, is Pastor Robert Jeffress, head of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Fox Business contributor, and I think it’s fair to say, a great American. Good to have you with us.

ROBERT JEFFRESS: Thanks, Lou. Great to be here with you.

DOBBS: It was an impressive ceremony, an impressive prayer, and — and suddenly, Mitt Romney, who you supported in 2012, comes after you like nobody’s business. What’s going on?

JEFFRESS: Well, that’s right, and look, he was upset with me because in the primaries I supported Rick Perry and not him. But Lou, let me just say to all of our viewers, I am not a bigot. Many of those comments are either manufactured or ripped out of context.

[…]

DOBBS: I assume that you are expecting an apology from Mitt Romney, forthwith.

JEFFRESS: I’m not waiting by my Twitter, no, I’m not.

An apology from Romney? It was Jeffress who attacked him, saying over and over again that Christians should not vote for him because Mormonism is a cult (but perfectly fine to vote for a thrice-married serial adulterer and sexual predator, of course). Now here’s what a real journalist would have done. A real journalist would have asked which quotes from him, specifically, were “manufactured” and which were “ripped out of context,” then demanded to know the context of those and how it changes the meaning of what he said.

Jeffress would, of course, have babbled like an idiot and tried to change the subject, because he’s lying. For crying out loud, we sent a guy to the opening of an embassy in a country created as a refuge for Jews when he believes Jews are going to hell. And that isn’t “out of context,” he’s said it repeatedly. He did it in a lecture series that he called “Politically Incorrect,” so he was doing this with a pose of “I’m going tell you the truth that isn’t politically correct.

“God sends good people to Hell,” he said. “Not only do religions like Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism — not only do they lead people away from God, they lead people to an eternity of separation from God in Hell.”

There is no context that would change that reality and it sure as hell isn’t manufactured. Funny how these “Godly men” resort so quickly to lying when it suits their purposes.